The use of travel trailers and boat trailers by today's recreation oriented society is well documented. As boats get bigger, their trailers get longer. As travel trailers become more sophisticated to provide space for showers, refrigerators, TV sets and other comfort providing appliances and facilities, the trailers have themselves become bigger and bulkier.
It is quite common to park the boat trailer in a garage separate from the car or truck. And, it is quite common to park the camping trailer in a campground and detach the towing vehicle to use it for local touring and shopping.
Today most towed vehicles are retained by a ball and socket towing apparatus made by one manufacturer or another. Unfortunately, most people have difficulty in backing up the towing vehicle to the exact spot where the hitch ball would be in alignment with the socket of the trailer or towed vehicle to permit ready coupling of one to the other. The problem is compounded by the fact that the weight of the trailer tongue inhibits manual alignment of the socket with the previously positioned ball of the towing vehicle. This necessitates repeated back-up efforts, often resulting in frustration for both the driver of the towing vehicle and the helper directing the driver's movements.
Various devices have been invented to help align the trailer tongue's socket with the towing vehicle's ball for this coupling.
Many of these however, are limited in their movement capabilities. Some utilize a track, others only move in one direction. Some have constructions that do not lend themselves for use on other than flat land. As the result of a patent search applicant became aware of the following U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ 1,337,065 GARCIA 3,084,953 MCGREGOR 3,765,703 VOELKERDING 4,911,460 DEPAULA 4,961,589 FAURENHOFF ______________________________________
Yet with all of these inventions and others, there still remains the need for an easy-to-use, low-cost readily-manipulatable trailer tongue alignment device.
It is an object therefore of this invention to provide an improved trailer tongue alignment device, operable by a socket wrench.
It is another object to provide a trailer tongue alignment device which can be easily operated by man, woman and child.
Still another object is provide a trailer tongue alignment device that is moveable in 360.degree. as may be needed.
A further object is to provide a tongue alignment device that is usable with almost any trailer tongue which has a vertical trailer tongue jack.
A still further object is to provide a trailer tongue alignment device that can be operated on soft or hard ground, paved or pebbled surfaces, be they flat or sloping.
These and other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.
The invention accordingly comprises the product possessing the features, properties and the relation of components which are exemplified in the following detailed disclosure and the scope of the application of which will be indicated in the claims.